Pimento stuffed olives are well known items of commerce. Basically, green olives are pitted in such a manner as to leave a cavity in the central portion of the pitted olive. That cavity is stuffed with a small, cut, section of natural pimento. The section is, generally, rectangular in planar shape and will have a thickness of from as little as 0.1 inch to as great as 0.5 inch, depending primarily on the size of the green olive and the cavity incurred in removing the pit thereof. This cut section of natural pimento is formed into a loop of a radius consistent with the diameter of the cavity in the pitted olive. The section of pimento is then inserted into the cavity, filling the cavity and being held therein, essentially, by the friction between the walls of the cavity and the section of pimento.
As can be appreciated from the foregoing, the section of pimento must be of a relatively critical size and shape in order to be neatly stuffed and tightly held into the cavity of the pimento. Natural pimento, on the other hand, is irregular in shape and in cutting these necessary sizes and shapes from natural pimento, considerable amounts of "scrap" pimento results. This incurs a considerable economic waste, since applications for scraps of pimento are severely limited. Further, the cost of the pimento and the stuffing operation constitute a more significant cost of the stuffed olive. Under the circumstances, the art has sought ways of utilizing the scraps of pimento in stuffing other olives.
However, efforts in the art to use these scraps of pimento have not met, generally, with commercial success, primarily due to the exacting requirements for pimento sections suitable for stuffing pitted olives. The art and machinery for pitting and stuffing olives is rather specifically developed. As can be appreciated, the machine must be rather exacting in its mechanical operation in order that the pit can be cleanly and neatly removed. Additionally, the machine must carefully and neatly place a section of pimento in the pit cavity and that section of pimento must be placed in such a manner that it will be tightly engaged by the cavity. Representative of the machinery in the art of stuffing olives is U.S. Pat. No. 2,578,469, which disclosure is incorporated herein by reference. That patent indicates the complexity of the machinery involved for stuffing olives and additionally notes the necessity of having a generally-predictable pimento section for use in automatic stuffing machines. Even further precision in such machineries are indicated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,384,429 and 2,637,653.
The pimento section must have minimum and predictable properties in order for it to be automatically handled by an automatic stuffing machine. Thus, the pimento must be capable of being neatly severed in cutting a properly sized section so that the section will not have ragged or irregular severed portions which might interfere with automatic handling and stuffing. The pimento must be capable of being looped so that it may be stuffed into the pitted cavity. A minimum amount of strength is required in order that the pimento may be handled by the automatic machine and forced into the pitted cavity. Some resiliency of the pimento is also required to insure that the pimento, having been stuffed in the olive, will remain in the cavity. On the other hand, of course, the pimento must have a minimum moisture content and tenderness in order that the taste and mouth-feel will be acceptable to the consuming public. Of course, any utilization of scrap material must result in the stuffed olive having the general appearance of an olive stuffed with a section of natural pimento. In view of these exacting requirements, no proposal in the art for utilizing scraps of pimento in stuffing olives has had wide commercial acceptance.
The art, of course, has been aware of methods for utilizing or reconstituting fruit scraps. These methods involve varying approaches, but commonly the fruit scraps are ground and agglomerated or coagulated from an aqueous medium with calcium compounds, which affect the natural pectin, and gel the medium. U.S. Pat. No. 2,548,510 is representative of this art. A similar approach has been proposed for scrap pimento. In this method, a suspension of ground pimento is made in a solution of a gum, such as agar agar, gelatine, gum-arabic, etc. The suspension is flowed into the pitted olive and set by various methods, usually lowered temperature. U.S. Pat. No. 2,351,788 is representative of this art. However, that approach cannot be utilized on existing automatic stuffing machines and no machinery is currently available for carrying out that method. Additionally, the resulting "stuffed" olive does not have the expected appearance of a looped and stuffed pimento and is not, generally, acceptable to the consuming public. Also, that approach does not give either the mouth-feel or taste of a conventionally stuffed olive, which further decreases its acceptability to the consuming public.
The art has also proposed methods for reconstituting fruits and vegetables by preparing a suspension of a fruit or vegetable in a settable binder, such as a natural gum solution, and shaping that composition, e.g., extruding or molding, into the required shape. Artificial cherries have been molded in this manner but such products have not enjoyed commercial success, due to the rubbery and unacceptable mouth-feel. It has also been proposed to extrude a mixture of food suspended in a gel forming mixture, such as a solution of a gum, into a setting bath which will form a semi-gel. These approaches, however, generally involve the forming of a two-phase system with an outer core which has been set by the gelling bath and an inner core which remains, primarily, unset. These processes are often carried out with alginic acid or its salts and the setting bath is often an alkaline earth metal salt such as calcium chloride. U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,791,508 and 2,992,925 are representative of this art. While pimento has been suggested for reconstitution by this method, (see particularly U.S. Pat. No. 2,992,925), those methods have never been accepted commercially, since the reconstituted pimento obtained has not been capable of reproducing the exacting properties for automatic stuffing machines, as noted above.
In view of the above, the art has for a long time felt the need for a method of preparing reconstituted pimento in such a form that the reconstituted pimento can be used with automatic stuffing machines in stuffing olives. The ability to utilize the reconstituted pimento in existing automatic machines and the ability to essentially completely mimic natural pimento in taste, appearance and texture have constituted important factors in utilizing reconstituted pimento.